Almost a full year after Manning Publications first contacted me about writing a book on graphing calculator programming, I am proud to announce that "Programming the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus" has been published! To quote directly from the book's description:

Programming the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus is an example-filled, hands-on tutorial that introduces students, teachers, and professional users to programming with the TI-83 Plus and TI-84 Plus graphing calculators. This fun and easy-to-read book immediately immerses you in your first programs and guides you concept-by-concept, example-by-example. You'll learn to think like a programmer as you use the TI-BASIC language to design and write your own utilities, games, and math programs.

As I will be demonstrating at Maker Faire this weekend, graphing calculators like the TI-83+ and the TI-84+ are the perfect way to learn programming. My book assumes no previous programming knowledge and teaches you to think like a programmer, to plan the logic and structure of a program, and to turn that plan into code. While it teaches the TI-BASIC language (and touches for a chapter each on hybrid BASIC and z80 ASM), I think that it would serve as a good guide to anyone looking to get started in programming with any language. Every lesson is interspersed with plenty of code examples that you can test out on your own calculator, which I feel is vital for getting an intuitive feel for a language.

I encourage you, whether you are a student, a teacher, or a professional, to grab Programming the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus and give it a read. If you want to learn to program, learn calculator programming, or even if you already know some TI-BASIC and want to learn more advanced techniques, I think this is a great resource. And if you want to start reading it before you buy it, you can check out the free Chapter 1: Diving into Calculator Programming and Chapter 6: Advanced Input and Events chapters. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the book!

Important Links
Buy Programming the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus on Amazon
Buy Programming the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus at Barnes and Noble
Table of Contents, sample chapters, and more information from Manning Publications

Oh yeah!! Wonderful, Kerm! Count on my buying it if I ever can afford it! Very excited Very Happy
CalebHansberry wrote:
Oh yeah!! Wonderful, Kerm! Count on my buying it if I ever can afford it! Very excited Very Happy
Many thanks, I am super-excited as well. I hope that you can some day. Smile
I ordered it. Lets see if helps me. (Looks a lot better then I expected, based on preview of table of contents Razz.)
LiquidMetal wrote:
I ordered it. Lets see if helps me. (Looks a lot better then I expected, based on preview of table of contents Razz.)
I hope it helps you a lot! I look forward to your questions and feedback. Out of curiosity, what did you expect to be lacking that checking out the table of contents made you realize it has?
Next pay check I get, $20 goes aside for this. Very Happy
Can't wait to read it! Very Happy
I ran out of highlighter and red link already.
allynfolksjr wrote:
I ran out of highlighter and red link already.


That's okay, Cemetech has plenty of red links to go around. In fact, here's one more for good measure.
parserp wrote:
Next pay check I get, $20 goes aside for this. Very Happy
Can't wait to read it! Very Happy
Many thanks! I hope that you enjoy it.

Nikky: I hope that you will post up your scathing review on Amazon.
Awesome !

Just bought it (paper+eBook Very Happy)

I also have announced it in a TI-Planet news: https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=10469
I've gotten mine! Thanks for the mention in the acknowledgements! Smile
Adriweb: Superb, and many thanks for the mention. I hope we'll be able to get it to French readers soon.

Elfprince: Thanks right back at you for being a great colleague, coder, administrator, and friend over the years!
KermMartian wrote:
LiquidMetal wrote:
I ordered it. Lets see if helps me. (Looks a lot better then I expected, based on preview of table of contents Razz.)
I hope it helps you a lot! I look forward to your questions and feedback. Out of curiosity, what did you expect to be lacking that checking out the table of contents made you realize it has?


I don't really know, its hard to say. It covers more topics then I thought it would, however briefly (don't know yet - didn't come yet). In general, any calculator-related documentation has seemed incomplete or overly complicated to me in the past. I like that it does not require any programming background (not that is a problem for me), and that it covers basic programming concepts, instead of simply this piece of code does this, and that's that. Maybe when you told me it had optimization techniques, I thought it would be a two page thing, but it looks like it is a lot more in the book, and is therefore more likely to be useful. Maybe I'll make my Tetris3.0 program the target of some of those techniques. (I just found a few more bugs on Friday Sad.)
That's fair. It spans 352 pages, so I feel it's in-depth, but I also feel that I wrote it to be accessible and an easy read. I teach the concepts first, then show code that uses it, then explains how the new concept works in the context of that code, so I hope you'll find that method well-suited to your learning style.
Just got it in the mail, only read the foreword and preface so far.

p. xxi: Shouldn't "Author Online forum, Cemetech" be "author's online forum, Cemetch?"
LiquidMetal wrote:
Just got it in the mail, only read the foreword and preface so far.

p. xxi: Shouldn't "Author Online forum, Cemetech" be "author's online forum, Cemetch?"
Nope. The Author Online Forum is something that Manning maintains. It's a list of three different things; the Author Online forum doesn't refer to Cemetech. Smile
Oh! I just registered the book, and found the forum, so I figured that out and came straight here. That's a bit confusing for people unfamiliar with Manning Publications.
LiquidMetal wrote:
Oh! I just registered the book, and found the forum, so I figured that out and came straight here. That's a bit confusing for people unfamiliar with Manning Publications.
Indeed, I think they assume that people are already familiar with Manning books. I was pushing to just have this be the main forum for the book, but they insisted on doing it the standard way, which I certainly respect. I just haven't seen much activity in that forum, other than spam topics that I can't seem to remove. Smile
I noticed something about an apple device, and the signature had a lot of spammy links... They don't give you admin privileges in your author forum?
LiquidMetal wrote:
I noticed something about an apple device, and the signature had a lot of spammy links... They don't give you admin privileges in your author forum?
I had thought they did, but it seems not. I emailed the person at Manning who first emailed me about the Author Online Forum, so I'm sure that it will get resolved soon.
  
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